Carolyn and I headed up to Wyoming for the weekend since Ryan and Corie would be there. We entertained ourselves by shooting guns and riding ATVs in standard redneck fashion. Stepping outside the stereotype a bit we also biked from my parents house out to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, 32 miles in the Wyoming wind is NO JOKE!
For large images click here. or just click play on the slideshow below.
Here are the highlights:
Carolyn and I got out for some high country ridge running fun on Sunday. We had been at sea level for nearly 3 weeks and definitely felt the altitude a bit more than we normally would, especially over 13,000 feet. I had always heard good things about the Kelso Ridge but for various reasons have just never checked it out. It is a fun route and gets you away from the masses heading up the standard route.
We decided to haul the video camera up with us and made a little movie about the climb. To watch the HD version be sure to click the link below to watch it over at Vimeo. Hope you enjoy!
We’ve all heard the expression a picture is worth 1000 words. Well for me many times I would like to hear a few words about what went into a particular picture so I have been inspired to start some blog posts about “the story behind the shot.”
As I left work last night I could tell a good storm was brewing and the clouds and light over Boulder were very interesting. Also, the flash flood warning on my computer desktop clued me in (I’m a little slow) that Boulder was in for a good thunderstorm…and I’ve learned recently where there is thunder there must be lightning (told you I’m slow).
Carolyn’s work was having a BBQ at Tom Watson Park near Coot Lake so I swung home to get the camera gear and decided to take the dirt road around Boulder Reservoir, mainly hoping to get a shot of the interesting clouds over Boulder. As I neared the reservoir the light show began and I needed to get set up quickly to capture the action. Luckily I’ve practiced shooting lightning a few times off the back porch so I learned from all the mistakes I’ve made.
I got the camera on the tripod, hooked up the intervalometer, and set it to fire off a 1 second exposure every second. I could tell I was getting some good strikes on Bear Peak and Green Mountain so now I just hoped I didn’t have the settings on my camera goofed up like I usually do. The result is the picture below which turned out pretty well, in the future I need to weigh down my tripod so the wind doesn’t shake it as much; another lesson learned but I’m getting better.
We wrapped up our 2nd day of climbing in the Black Canyon by climbing the Casual Route, a nice 6 pitch 5.8 with a bit of scrambling/bushwhacking at the the end to top out. The weather was much better on day 2 so we were able to concentrate on getting some decent footage for the movie, I think this movie is much better than day 1.
For a high resolution video, watch the video here.
This Memorial Day weekend I was able to finally do a couple routes in the awesome Black Canyon on the Gunnison. On Saturday we climbed Maiden Voyage, a great intro 4 pitch 5.9 route. The video from this route can be seen below. If you are on a broadband connection and want to see a higher quality version of the video, check out here.